


Something to Have and Something to Hold

by dumplin



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hopeful Ending, Pre Relationship, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, the difference about being needed and being wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumplin/pseuds/dumplin
Summary: Soulmarks meant there was someone out there who was meant for you. Soulmarks meant that, somehow, somewhere, you were going to be loved.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 142





	Something to Have and Something to Hold

The fact that there was a tiny sheepdog curled up in the hollow of Anne’s throat was something she held to tightly and sometimes desperately in her years in the foster system, in the asylum, when the people who were supposed to be caring for her screamed and yelled and raged and reminded her just what a waste of space she was. She held tight, tight,  _ tight _ to it, because it represented the one thing she wanted, no, longed for, no,  _ needed _ above all else.

Love. 

Someone who will love and cherish and care for her despite the fact that she was ugly and plain and had the unmentionable affliction of red hair. She held on to it when Mrs Hammond yelled and screeched and shoved a stinking baby into Anne’s hands. She held onto it when she was bullied and belittled in the asylum, and she let her imagination soar with it when she could find a bit of paper and pencil to write herself out of her reality. 

She wasn’t plain old Anne Shirley stuck in a drafty old tower, hiding from the pointed words and sharp hands of the other girls in the asylum, but Cordelia with raven black hair, plump, red lips and the fairest, most perfect skin in all the land. Cordelia was beautiful and kind and worthy of all the love Anne had never known. Cordelia was also stuck in a tower, besieged on all sides by monsters of all kinds, but Cordelia got rescued by a prince with dark, curly hair and the most intelligent, soulful eyes ever, and they loved each other dearly. 

(Truth be told, it took Anne a long time to come up with the prince. What on earth did a sheepdog look like as a person, anyway?)

Anne knew not everyone had one, a mark that proclaimed to all the world that you were destined for a great love, and that little piece of knowledge made her that much warmer, made her feel a tiny bit special when Mrs Hammond, red-faced with tendrils of greasy hair sticking to her skin, yelled at her and the hollow at her throat was conspicuously bare. 

Anne might not be much to look at, and she might be lacking in many other ways (Matron had been sure to inform her of exactly all the ways), but she had a special destiny, a promise carved into her skin that she was meant for love, even if everything around her tried to prove that little mark wrong. Anne knew, and that was enough. For now, at least. 

Anne often wondered what animal would be used to represent her. After all, if she had a mark it stood to reason that someone had her mark etched into their skin. On good days, she thought it might be some wild, unique, exotic animal. Like a lion, or one of those hugging bears she had read about. On bad days, she hoped her love wasn’t too disappointed to have a cockroach as a mark. Cockroaches were resilient, after all, and after everything she’s been through Anne thought she was pretty resilient. 

When she first met Matthew and Marilla, she was surprised that here there were two fully grown adults with visible marks who… weren’t married. Weren’t married, and didn’t seem to have ever had any notion of it. An old maid and a bachelor, brother and sister, both marked, with no romantic connection to anyone. Anne was certain that there had to be some sort of horridly tragical romance behind the marks, but she was also quite sure that asking about it would put that horrible, angry, pinched look on Marilla’s face, and make Matthew so very, very sad, and that was the last thing Anne wanted.

So, she made up her own story. What was an imagination for if not to fill in the gaps and make things more fantastical and interesting?

So. Marilla, of course, had had a sweetheart in the war (what war, Anne wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but a war nonetheless), and they were very much in love and besotted with each other. Besotted was such a wonderful word, Anne decided. It just… fit. It was perfect. Marilla and her sweetheart were besotted with each other but then, in a great and awful tragedy, her sweetheart lost his life in the war and as a testament to her love and commitment to her marked love, Marilla vowed never to enter into a romantical relationship ever again. 

The tale was so romantic and bittersweetly tragic that Marilla found her sobbing in her gable room after dinner, overcome with emotions about this horrid fate. Marilla was alarmed, of course, but any attempt on her part to console or enquire after why Anne was sobbing was met with a new bout of crying as Anne felt keenly in her soul how kindly and long-suffering Marilla had been all her life. One had to be, of course, to endure that kind of love lost. Anne vowed then and there to never ever ever get mad at Marilla again, for how could she get mad at someone who had lived through such a tragedy?

(She promptly broke that promise the next day when Marilla refused to let her make flower crowns for all the cows and made her stay in and complete the next square in her patchwork, but it was the thought that counted, Anne supposed.)

Matthew, of course, had an equally tragical romance, but  _ his _ paramour didn’t die, oh no. Matthew, Anne thought in her heart of hearts, had been marked to a man, and while some might choose to live together as single men until the end of their days, Matthew’s partner might have had responsibilities towards his own family. It was a sad tale, alright, and it ensured Anne treated Matthew like the wonderful, affectionate man he really was, underneath all the quiet bluster. 

(She still did, because dear Matthew would have to try really hard to make  _ anyone _ mad, nevermind someone who loved him as dearly as Anne. Though Marilla managed to get mad and stay mad at him quite frequently, a fact that baffled Anne.)

The first few weeks at Green Gables was some of the happiest Anne had ever experienced. Although not without bumps and bruises and growing pains between the three of them, she was finally  _ wanted _ somewhere, which was ever so much more special than being  _ needed _ (Mrs Hammond had needed her to look after her sets of twins, after all). The first few weeks were wonderful, and meeting Diana Barry, her bosom friend and one of the nicest, kindest and prettiest creatures in the whole world, was the cherry on top of the most scrumptious cake. 

“I do so wish my mark wasn’t a weasel, though,” Diana sighed while out in their little Idlewind camp, ‘washing’ the dishes after the delightful ‘tea’ they had just enjoyed. 

Anne, who was busy twisting stems and flowers together to make matching flower crowns for them both, shook her head adamantly. “Oh, but, Diana, a weasel can be ever so romantical, didn’t you know? Just think, a weasel is crafty and resourceful, and smart to boot. All are admirable qualities, don’t you think?”

“Well, yes, I suppose, but a dog just seems that much more full of love.” Diana’s fingers fluttered up to her mark, where a small weasel seemed to be smiling out at the world. Anne, personally, thought the weasel one of the most adorable creatures she had ever seen, and she delivered this piece of news to Diana, reassuring her most ardently that her beloved would be a wonderful specimen. 

“Don’t you just love that word, specimen?” Anne asked, having quite recently learned the word from one of the few books in Marilla and Matthew’s modest library. “It sounds so deliciously grown-up.”

Diana agreed, though there was a confused twist to her forehead, before shaking her head and smiling conspiratorially at Anne. “What about your mark? Do you think you’ll meet them here in Avonlea?”

“Oh, maybe, who knows! I’m only thirteen, you know. I’ve so much more life to live, one couldn’t expect to meet the love of one’s life in childhood.” Anne said this loudly and gaily and brightly and didn’t allude at all to the fact that this was something that she had been thinking about quite a bit, in fact. 

Of course, she wanted to share everything with Diana, and they had no secrets between them, of course. They were bosom friends, so of course they wouldn’t. But, Anne didn’t want to give that tiny speck of hope in her chest the chance to burn even brighter. That would be selfish, at this stage of her life. She already had so much, so much more than she ever really thought she’d have, though her fruitful imagination had amused itself with the possibility thousands of times. 

It just all seemed so unlikely, that’s all. She knew the mark was a promise, an actual physical sign that there was someone out there who would love her forever and ever, and Anne’s lonely, romantic little heart yearned for it, but it seemed a bit… greedy, really. She was showered with so much love now, already, she couldn’t imagine that the universe would allow her more of that incandescent happiness. 

So, she laughed and smiled and speculated along with Diana and, quite contrary to the open, honest manner she thought best, kept quiet about her fears and premonitions. They were young, after all, far too young to be thinking about love and marriage yet. Anne had the whole world to explore, after all, and until that day when she would meet her beloved… well, Cordelia and her prince had sufficed till now. They would suffice for a while longer. 

\---

Gilbert Blythe, at fifteen years of age, felt quite keenly that life really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. At this point in his life, he should have been looking forward to his entrance exams the following year, already studying and anticipating it. Maybe he should even have gotten himself a sweetheart, someone to talk to and share his dreams and hopes with. Like Mother had been to Father. Or, well, what Gilbert assumed Mother had been to Father. 

They didn’t talk about her. Or about his father’s illness, the one that had taken them away from Avonlea for two years, searching for the right questions, then answers, then a series of cure after cure that Gilbert couldn’t see to have done any good except to dim the hope in his father’s already tired eyes. 

It was strange, this thing between them that had shaken up both of their lives so completely and utterly, and yet which went unacknowledged apart from the quiet adjustments in their day to day lives. 

His father had never told Gilbert what answer that final doctor had given him, had in fact kept Gilbert as much in the dark as possible (though he couldn’t stop Gilbert from listening at the doors, where Gilbert had learned that a simple, six letter word was enough to strike despair in his heart), but Gilbert had made his own conclusions after his father declared, with a soft smile, like he was doing Gilbert a  _ favour _ , that they were going home. 

Wouldn’t it be nice, to be home? To be with his friends again? To do his schoolwork and his farm work like normal again?

Normal. Normal, like before his father spent the entire day in bed, because even tending to the little garden outside was too much for him, even trying to keep the kitchen fire going was too much. Normal, like Gilbert could go straight from two years of doctors and pharmacies and powders to frolicking in the sun with his friends and studying geometry. 

But, his father smiled at him, almost pleadingly, and oh, how Gilbert hated that he could now read that expression, hated his father a little bit for making him grow up so quickly, and with that grown-upness came the knowledge that the best thing he could do for his father was smile and say, ‘Yes,’ say, ‘I can’t wait to go home.’

Gilbert knew the church was quite firm on its stance on lying, but he also felt quite keenly that, in this situation, God would forgive him. If God was as all-knowing and all-seeing as the church said, then He would know that that lie put such a smile of relief on his father’s face, Gilbert almost felt glad about the fact that he was quite a good liar, really. 

And, really, Gilbert  _ was _ excited to go back to school. It surprised him how much, surprised him that, even though the greeting his father gave him that morning was scarcely above a whisper, he couldn’t keep the smile from his face for too long. Touching the bright red sparrow at his throat for luck, breathing deeply, he wound his scarf tightly around his neck, checked his lunch and books, and tried (and mostly succeeded), not to feel guilty as he left his father for the day.

He loved his father, he did, and of course he wanted to care for him, but Gilbert hadn’t realised how much everything had been pressing on him until he was halfway to school and he could breathe freely for the first time in… too long. Maybe a little bit of normalcy, no matter how thin the veneer, was a good thing, after all. 

That good mood lasted all the way until just before he hit the schoolhouse, until he heard Billy Andrews’ voice, heard the tightly-wound malice in it and Gilbert’s hackles were  _ raised _ . 

Billy Andrews was fine, generally. Yes, he wasn’t the nicest person ever, and, yes, Gilbert would be hard-pressed to say he was a  _ friend _ , per-se, but generally, he was fine. Irritating and overbearing and a bit of a bully, to be quite honest, but, mostly,  _ fine _ . 

But, but that  _ voice _ , and the things he was  _ saying _ just didn’t  _ sit right _ with Gilbert, and when he came round the bend in the road and saw Billy leering at a small figure on the ground, a cruel smile on his handsome face, something inside Gilbert went ice, ice cold. 

He got rid of Billy as quickly as he could, smile brittle and  _ wrong _ on his face but he had to keep smiling, had to keep things light, friendly, something whispering inside him that the strange, distant light in Billy’s eyes could turn violent like  _ that _ . If it was just him, Gilbert might let it, might welcome the chance to work off some of the anger and sadness that’s been festering inside him for two years, but it wasn’t just him. It wasn’t just him, so he kept smiling until Billy scoffed, until Billy walked away with a derogatory comment, until he heard the scrambled sounds of the figure behind him getting to her feet. 

Gilbert liked to think he was a practical, no-nonsense person, that the frills and thrills and flowery language of the world just wasn’t for him. He was a practical person, had been through more than his classmates could ever even imagine, and he wasn’t one to let himself get carried away into melodramatic daydreams. 

Seeing Anne Shirley for the first time, however, felt like a little melodrama would be appropriate. 

It would be a lie to say that Anne was some sort of great beauty, that he saw and was blown away by how absolutely gorgeous she was. Anne was thin and gangly, face pale beneath a blanket of freckles and framed by fire-red hair. She looked cute, in a way, cute enough for Gilbert to take notice, but. But that wasn’t what caught his attention, wasn’t what caused him to hold still, to  _ see _ her like he didn’t think he’d seen anyone else before in his life. 

It was her  _ eyes _ , big, blue, and impossibly deep that caught, and held, his attention. Without them she was a cute girl. With them, Gilbert genuinely felt like he was drowning in her gaze. There was fear in her eyes, yes, apprehension, yes, but there was also something more, something deeper and somehow darker than this little waif of a girl seemed capable of carrying, that just. It was just. 

It was captivating, that’s what it was. 

Gilbert didn’t see himself as melodramatic or wordy, really, he didn’t, but, for this girl, he felt ready to write  _ poetry _ . 

It was a big thought, a big, galaxy brain thought, and it scared and excited Gilbert so much that he could only blame his subsequent behaviour on it. 

In his defence, he didn’t think he was being mean. Irritating, yes. Persistent, yes. Mean? Definitely not. He just wanted to  _ talk _ to her, just wanted her to  _ acknowledge _ him, to have those eyes fixed and focused on him again. And he was  _ nice _ . He tried to give her an apple at break, but she seemed so strange and skittish that he had to let it drop after a while. Maybe, maybe she was just shy? He saw the girls in the window, maybe she just wasn’t used to the giggling gossips of Avonlea?

So, maybe she was shy. Maybe it was because Gilbert was older and taller. Maybe he just had to show her he was still fun and young enough to be friends with and…

He shouldn’t have said it. He knew it the moment it left his mouth, knew he had done something incredibly wrong the moment he yanked her braid and her whole, tiny body went stiff as a board. He knew he had done wrong and when he got the slate to head, hard enough to make his ears ring and something cracked,  _ loudly _ , and he just hoped it wasn’t his head, he wasn’t even angry.

He had deserved it and, also, she was looking at him again, a fire in her eyes, and she was  _ talking _ to him, and he just could not resist the urge to smile, slightly, and say, “You just did.”

\---

Gilbert Blythe was the most  _ infuriating _ boy she had ever met, Anne decided the moment her slate connected to his head and he  _ still  _ had the gall to smile at her afterwards, reminding her that she had, in fact, talked to him. Mr Phillips was furious, and the children were giggling and laughing at her while Mr Phillips wrote atrocious lies about her on the blackboard, not even spelling her name with an e. Anne was aware of the fact that Gilbert said something in the same way she used to be aware of the girls at the orphanage teasing her. It was happening, but it was happening to the thing that was currently occupying her body, and that couldn’t be Anne, because Anne was inside her head, in the small tower room with Cordelia, and she was safe there and no one could reach her--

And she didn’t need to stay there. This wasn’t the orphanage, and she didn’t not have anywhere else to go. Marilla would be mad, probably, but Anne could  _ explain _ and make her  _ understand _ and Matthew, surely, would take her side in this, just as he had convinced Marilla to take her in what seemed forever ago now. 

In the end, it was easy to walk out, to take her stuff, and run, and leave the Anne that was surely being mocked and talked about in all sorts of horrid ways back at the schoolhouse. What they had back there was a paper Anne, a doll that looked and sounded like Anne Shirley Cuthbert but was, in reality, nothing like her at all. The real Anne, the Anne that she was, was running full tilt towards Green Gables and feeling the cold wind dry the tears on her face. 

The real Anne found a surprisingly sympathetic Marilla waiting for her at home, and gentle, if bewildered, acceptance of her not returning to school. 

Anne had known she had a home before then, of course, but she felt something change, then, in that moment where Marilla was hugging her tightly and even, if she wasn’t imagining it (which would be very like her, really) pressing a kiss to the top of Anne’s head. Anne Shirley  _ Cuthbert _ was loved, and wanted, and cherished and whatever the world had to say against her, whatever the lies and slander and hatred they would always fling towards anyone different or outside the norm, she had people at her back and a home to her name and they would never, ever turn her away. 

Later, Anne thought that for other children, it might not be such a big thing. Other children were born with parents and families and a certainty that their parents wanted them. That was later, however, for at that moment, and that night, late, after everyone in Green Gables had found sleep, Anne was still crying. Happy tears, this time. 

\---

Gilbert Blythe tried not to notice that the new girl (Anne, with fiery red hair that had invaded his dreams more than once in the days since he met her), didn’t show up at school for a week after ‘the slate incident’, but it was hard not to. And, not just because it was all everyone at the school could talk about. Billy Andrews seemed to think that Gilbert was up to making fun of Anne now, since he did, in fact, call her ‘Carrots’, and Gilbert was still trying to think of a way to say ‘fuck off’ (a word his father would not be pleased he knew, but which was unaviodable when travelling all over the country) without actually saying those words. 

The girls were in a tizzy about the whole business as well, Ruby Gillis alternating between staring tearfully at him and glaring at him (and he was not an idiot, he knew she liked him), and Diana Barry steadfastly avoiding his gaze, seeming to take Anne’s absence from school rather personally. 

Gilbert got on with his days, he was busy enough as it was without worrying about what a girl thought about him, but he couldn’t stop the niggling worry in his chest that he had done something worse than just tease a bit too far. There’d been a peculiar look in Anne’s eyes that day, after she had been called to the front of the class. Gilbert himself had stood there often enough for some misdemeanour or another in his time, as it was a fairly common tactic of Mr Phillips for misbehaving students, but Anne had seemed to take it harder than most. 

Gilbert was worried about her, and the more he tried to tell himself he didn’t have the time to worry about a girl he’d met exactly  _ once _ and then proceeded to insult in apparently a very awful way, the more that niggling in his chest grew until, one Wednesday night, it came to a head when he was awoken by the toll of the fire bell. 

His father was already up, wheezing as he carried their buckets to the front door for Gilbert to take and urging Gilbert to hurry with the horse. Stopping to grab a bucket from his father, despite his protests, Gilbert had the horse hooked up to the cart in no time, running to and fro from the house to get every receptacle even slightly capable of carrying water loaded up. He could see the unnatural smokey orange glow of the flames now, coming from the direction of the Gillis’, and his heart panged with worry. Everyone would have gotten out alright, wouldn’t they?

When he’d secured the final pail under a tarp, Gilbert turned back to see his father dragging his boots closer, and something inside him went cold. 

Children were supposed to start looking after and telling their parents ‘no’ when they were older. When they had their own houses, and had practise exercising their authority. When they didn’t feel like they were doing something unforgivable by walking over and plucking the boots from their fathers hands, shoving them out of the way and helping their father into the house as gently as possible, given the urgency of the situation. 

“Oh, come now, Gilbert,” his father said, an irritated edge to his voice that made Gilbert think of the man his father was before… all of this. But, he wasn’t that man anymore, he wasn’t the man that worked from dawn to dusk and still had time for a song and game after supper. 

He wasn’t that man anymore, and Gilbert felt like he was taking a knife to the lung when he looked at his father and, in a voice he didn’t recognise, said, “No. You’re not well enough. I’ll go alone,” and then turned and locked the door behind him. He might get hell for that later, for the way he closed the door in his father’s face “I’m still your father, young man!”, but he didn’t have time for that now. 

By the time Gilbert arrived, there were already two carts there, Billy Andrews and his father immediately roping Gilbert into their efforts to put out the fire. A quick glance ensured that all of the Gillis’ had gotten out, and then it was a dark confusion of burning smoke and freezing, sloshing water that didn’t seem to do much at all. It was only when a yell broke through the haze Gilbert had been working in when he realised that Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert were standing on the lane, with Marilla looking at the house like it’d eaten her most prized possession.

A sound from the window alerted Gilbert, and when he looked over to see Anne’s pale, freckled, soot-stained face staring out at him, it was all he could do not to tumble off the roof himself. 

“Anne?” His voice cracked on her name, and he blamed it on the smoke and not on the curling panic in his chest at seeing Anne in a burning house, her hair seeming to almost form part of the flames around her. 

She paused for the barest second, outlined in the dark doorway, before slamming the door shut and there wasn’t much Gilbert could do about it then, because the buckets were still coming and, whatever Anne had been doing in the house seemed to have calmed the fire since the buckets of water seemed to be quenching the fire instead of fueling it now. A voice called out, “Anne slowed down the fire! It was Anne, she did it,” and Gilbert didn’t know how to explain the feeling rising in his chest when he paused in his work for a second to look down at Anne, see her flushed face full of soot, surrounded by fluttering hands and concerned voices. 

It made him want to go down there and-- and smile at her, tell her she did a good job, tell her he was proud of her. It made no sense, he barely knew her, he was sure she wouldn’t appreciate those words coming from him of all people but all the same, it was true. He would like to think he caught her eye that night, that she saw him, looking at her, and saw the, the  _ pride _ in his eyes, but. But Gilbert was realistic, and had no time for poetry and fanciful dreams, so he looked at her between buckets, and he looked at her while climbing down from the roof, after the fire had been extinguished at last, and he looked at her as the Cuthberts drove off, and he didn’t think about wanting her to look at him. Not even once. 

\---

Ruby Gillis was everything a girl of thirteen ought to be, Anne thought, watching with wide eyes as Ruby brushed her golden locks of hair exactly a hundred times before tying it carefully with a pretty pink ribbon in a pretty pink bow. Ruby wore beautiful frilly dresses with gorgeous puffed sleeves and her hands were small and soft and dainty. 

Anne’s hands were rough with peeling skin and calluses from years of being a maid and the past month or two of helping Matthew in the barn. Anne wore perfectly adequate clothing that didn't do anything at all for her figure. She might be resigned to wearing plain, out of style and drab clothing, and her hair may never be seen as some great beauty, but she resolved then and there to start taking better care of her hands. Ruby Gillis was a lady, and Anne Shirley Cuthbert was not, and she so dearly, dearly wanted to be. 

(Well, really, she wanted to be a fairy queen most of all, but fairy queens probably also had dainty, fine hands, and Anne was beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that it might be easier to be a lady than to be a fairy queen. Will wonders never cease?)

They were going to bring biscuits to the men working on the Gillis’ house, and Gil-- that  _ boy _ was going to be there, and Ruby insisted that she had to be  _ perfect _ . Anne, of course, couldn’t care less. 

“Why do you care so much about what that stupid  _ boy _ thinks, anyway?” Anne huffed, fiddling with the plain brown ribbon she’d used to tie her braids. 

Ruby rolled her eyes in the mirror and turned to Anne. “He’s not just  _ any _ boy, Anne. He’s Gilbert Blythe, and he’s handsome, and smart, and kind, and even though he has a soulmark, seven out of ten people who have soulmarks never find their match, or don’t recognise them, so I still have a  _ chance! _ ” Ruby took a deep breath, fingers fluttering over the blank hollow of her throat. She shot an accusing glare towards Anne’s own, marked throat. “ _ You’re _ marked,  _ you _ don’t understand knowing you weren’t meant for love.” She turned up her nose at Anne, turning back to the mirror.

Anne… Anne didn’t know what to say. 

Ruby was right, in a way. Anne had always known, deep in her heart, never mind the things she went through or the tribulations she survived, that she was meant for love. But… she didn’t have what Ruby had. She had never  _ known _ that she was wanted, that there were people who would stand by her no matter what, that would love and support her no matter what she did. Anne tilted her head. She’d never thought about what it felt like to…  _ not _ have a mark. It was part of who she was, her lifeline in many,  _ many _ ways.

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” she said, shaking her head and smiling. “I didn’t even think about that, forgive me for being so thoughtless.” Her hand clenched in her skirt. Ruby had been thoughtless first but Anne wouldn’t think about that, wouldn’t talk about that, wouldn’t allow that thought to take root when she so desperately wanted to fit in. 

They arrived at the house carrying the basket between them, and Anne’s ears were ringing with Ruby’s giggling and gushing about  _ that _ boy, worrying about the biscuits and if her braids were neat enough. She was almost glad to have the sound or Ruby’s voice drowned out by the rhythmic thud of hammers and nails, the scrape of wooden boards being dragged and sawed. She would have to ask God to forgive her for that uncharitable thought tonight. She had become rather good at prayers. 

Getting to yell at Billy Andrews was a rush Anne felt in her  _ bones _ , and she definitely didn’t see the way Gil-- that boy’s eyes stuck on her, eyebrows raising and small smile plucking at the corners of his mouth with her words. She didn’t feel all flushed and aware of herself as he stood in front of her-- in front of  _ Ruby _ , talking to  _ Ruby _ , and her eyes definitely didn’t flick to the hollow of his throat, Ruby’s words echoing in her ears as she saw the small, red bird staring out at her. 

She only looked for an instance, for a  _ second _ , but when she looked up she caught his eyes, fixed on her, on  _ her _ , for some reason, not Ruby with her perfect golden hair and pointed chin and cherubic mouth, and for one, wild, insane second, Anne wished she wasn’t wearing a scarf. She’d seen his mark, and she wanted him to see hers, to see his dark gaze reflected in the eyes of her sheepdog, and, and she and Ruby really have tarried long enough. 

Marilla wanted to bake bread, and her arms always got tired when she had to knead the dough all on her own. Baking was the one thing Ruby didn’t object to doing at Green Gables. Anne pretended not to notice the way Gilbert’s eyes follower her--  _ them _ as they walked away, pretended the nape of her neck wasn’t burning with that awareness.

Anne spent longer than she’d like to admit staring at her soulmark that night, fingertips tracing the well-known edges, Ruby’s gentle snores the background music for her wild, untamed thoughts.

\---

Gilbert didn’t get yelled at.

Not the night he came home from the fire, not the next day, and not once in the following week, going out each day to help rebuild the Gillis house. He didn’t get yelled at, nor did he get stern looks or pointed words. Granted, even at full health his father had never been one for harping on about a subject, but… Gilbert had expected  _ something _ . Had almost wanted something. He’d done the right thing that night, he knew he had, but. But he was fifteen years old. He was not supposed to tell his father what to do. He was fifteen years old, and his father was not even mad at Gilbert for telling him he couldn’t do something.

Gilbert didn’t get yelled at, but he  _ did  _ get tired, almost embarrassed looks. He didn’t get yelled at, but he got a quieter, more compliant father, less prone to moving around beyond his limits, more prone to taking his medication without complaint. 

Gilbert didn’t get yelled at, and he  _ hated _ it. 

He wanted to provoke his father, wanted to  _ make _ him get angry, wanted to rile him up, see the father he recognised from when he was young. But, he wouldn’t, because his father was weak, and Gilbert didn’t know how long he had left, and there was a growing, empty pit in his stomach that told him he didn’t have long.

On the day school started again, Gilbert got his father’s food ready and left for school with his father’s cough ringing in his ears and his pale complexion swimming in front of his eyes. No, he didn’t think he had long at all. So wrapped up in his thoughts was Gilbert, that it was only after he heard a very put-upon huff to his right that he realised there was someone walking beside him. 

Without realising, he had fallen into step beside Anne, and for a second he was so caught up in realisation that she was going to school again, that he didn’t notice her lengthening her strides to outpace him, arms crossed tightly in front of her chest. 

“Wait!” He hurried to catch up, surprised when she actually paused for a moment, just enough for him to fall in beside her again, before moving again. She still had her arms folded, and she wasn’t looking at him at all. Gilbert cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.” She stopped, and he stopped too, Anne turning to face him properly now. “For what I said, that day. I didn’t, I didn’t mean to offend you, or to be mean. I just,” he huffed a breath, scratching the back of his neck. “I just wanted your attention. It was stupid of me, I know.”

“Why?” Anne’s face was still set in an angry pout, her whole body closed off, but her eyes were deep and dark and curious and Gilbert never liked lying anyway. 

“Why did I want your attention? I, uh, I thought you were cute.” He waited a second, saw the way red creeped up her neck. “I… still think you’re cute.”

Anne shook her head with a quick movement, moving as if to turn away, before turning back. “You-- you can’t think that. I-- Ruby has dibs! The girls will-- she has dibs.”

Gilbert gripped the strap of his bag, biting his bottom lip. He had a notion of what that meant but. “Dibs?”

Anne’s flush had spread up until it was licking at the top of her cheeks and Gilbert fought the urge to smile. He was pretty sure that wouldn’t be taken well at the particular moment. “Dibs! She, she saw you first. She liked you first, is what it means.”

There was an exhilarating, floating feeling in Gilbert’s chest, almost enough to cancel out the worry about his father, and he pinched his lips together. He had to be very careful, now. He didn’t want her to leave. Would do almost anything to have her not leave, he realised. “First? Does… that mean there’s someone else who likes me now?” He swallowed, faintly surprised at how loud it seemed in the hushed early morning. “Anne, do you like me? Because, because I like you.”

With that, her eyes went wide and she turned and started walking. She was walking fast, and that, for the moment that Gilbert was surprised, that he hesitated, was enough for her to get jogging distance away, so that when he reached her again he could feel his own cheeks flushed pink by the exertion. She wasn’t going faster to shake him off though. She was allowing him to walk next to her and that, that, Gilbert thought, was a start, at least. 

Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of her brilliant red hair again, the same shade as his soulmark and, almost as if in answer, the hollow in his throat seemed to glow warmly. Yes, this was a start, at least. 

**Author's Note:**

> This.... started as a drabble and kept growing. Wasn't really meant to be anything at all, but it helped me get out of writer's block, so here we are.
> 
> Twitter: [googlyeyes1507](https://twitter.com/googlyeyes1507)


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